


For the Most Part

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Post Bartlett Administration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: A glimpse of Josh and Donna's life through the years.





	For the Most Part

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

Year One

He’s amazed by the little things. He had no idea how soft sheets could be or how many pillows you actually put on a bed when it’s made. Or that you even make a bed every day. And he’s learning just how beautiful she is. In the bathtub surrounded by bubbles, in his boxers and a tank top while she cleans, in bed surrounded by work while he watches CNN, and yes, in lingerie. Not that she needs it; it always comes off the very second he sees it. But it’s nice of her to try.

He’s also amazed that she’s not as blinded by his charms as he thinks she should be. She’s figured out that he’s not perfect and often points it out to him. He leaves the toilet seat up, he doesn’t match his socks, he messes up faster than she can clean and after forty something years on earth, would it kill him to learn to cook something? Anything? 

But what amazes him more than anything is that she’s not perfect either, and he thinks maybe he should’ve seen that somewhere along the way. How she manages to make it to work on time every single day but can’t be ready for a dinner reservation or make the 7:15 movie boggles his mind. And would it kill her to take out the trash? Just once?

But other than that, things are good. Excellent even. They stick by their deal to be home no later than eight o’clock unless it’s a real emergency; and they have a list of what an emergency consists of right on the refrigerator just in case either of them needs a reminder. They never go into work before ten on Sundays, and they manage to make it to a Bed and Breakfast on the coast four times. It’s a good year.

Year Five

She’s not as neat as she used to be, thank goodness. The bed gets made… five times a week, and only the guest bathroom has shell and flower shaped soap in it. As for him, it appears he’s been somewhat trained. He can make spaghetti and frozen garlic bread and he almost never leaves dirty clothes on the floor. She’s still working on the toilet seat.

He always thought he knew her well when they worked together, but now he knows her inside out. Without exception she must pee the very second she wakes up in the morning, she finds nothing more tedious in the world than getting the oil changed in her car, and she can’t watch The Shining. And she’s afraid; so unbelievably afraid that she’s going to be a horrible mother that sometimes she cries about it when she thinks he’s asleep. But he even knows her well enough to know just how long to let her go before wrapping his arms around her and their unborn child and whispering into her ear that she’s amazing and that she’s going to be amazing at this too. 

And she knows him better too. She knows when he’s up for her trivia and when he really just needs silence. She can tell by the look on his face when he walks in the door at night whether or not he can emotionally handle talking about his day. She knows by his mood when he goes to sleep if he’s going to want a little morning fun.

Little tiffs have turned… not so little. Arguments last hours instead of minutes and flowers don’t always do the trick. And she’s just as stubborn as he is, especially when it’s her fault. But he doesn’t worry. There always comes that point when he just has to be in her presence; when his need for her beats out his need to be right. And she must feel the same way, because sometimes when she’s been in the bedroom pissed off at him for the majority of the night, she’ll come out and sit next to him on the couch, and without a word she’ll cuddle into his side and lay her head on his shoulder. And he’ll just put an arm around her and keep watching whatever it was he was watching on television or reading whatever it was he was reading, and that’ll be that. 

So for the most part, things are good. Excellent even. They only make the Bed and Breakfast twice, but they do go to Paris for their anniversary before she’s too far along. Once the baby’s born, they’re modifying their deal; no more working on Sundays, and throughout the week, she’ll leave the office by five and he’ll be home no later than seven o’clock unless it’s a real emergency. The emergency list still hangs on the refrigerator, modified several times but stuck to strictly. It’s their glue and they both know it.

Year Ten

He likes to watch her when she reads to Jake. She uses voices and he laughs, bringing out the dimples that someday Josh will teach him to use with girls. But for now Jake only likes baseball, firemen, cartoons, and his little sister. 

Allie’s different. She likes stuffed animals and saying ‘no.’ It’s like someone took her aside on her second birthday and explained the whole terrible twos thing to her. She’s taking it very seriously. And she’s more cunning than Jake too. She goes to Josh when Donna says no, and Jake never did that.

Josh was right; Donna took to taking care of their children much the way she took to taking care of him years and years earlier. Her inner lioness, which has always been subtly present when it comes to him, is now anything but subtle. She is exactly what a mother should be. Loving, nurturing, all knowing… stern. But sometimes she still thinks she’s doing a bad job, especially when Allie’s had a trying day. She’s never said it out loud, but he can tell in the way she watches their youngest sleep.

Fighting is different than it used to be. Now it’s quieter and after the kids go to bed. But that means that things fester and build up and by the time they discuss something, it’s gone from nothing major to something that ends with them on opposite sides of the bed trying to fall asleep without hearing the other one say ‘I love you.’ He hates that; hates it more than anything. It’s the worst downside to parenthood he’s found.

Other things have changed too. Lingerie is a word of the past. So is sleeping naked wrapped up in each other’s arms. They live in the suburbs where he pays some sixteen year-old to cut their grass. After President Santos’ second term they both left the White House, which was harder than he ever thought it would be. They have a consulting firm now, with better hours and hand-picked clients, but it’s not… well, it’s certainly not where he saw himself.

But for the most part, things are good. Excellent even. They take the kids to Disney World for three days and buy them mouse ears and take a thousand pictures. Then they leave them with his mother for a week while they go on a cruise to St. Thomas, St. Marten and San Juan. And the emergency list on the refrigerator has been replaced with drawings, paintings and magnet alphabet letters. And sometimes he still watches her while she sleeps because he’s so amazed that she’s there.

Year Sixteen

She asks him to retire the same week President-elect Myers asks him to be Secretary of Labor. It takes some convincing, but Jake’s ten and Allie’s eight and he’s proven that his family comes first, so she eventually caves and lets him back into the game. She keeps the consulting firm going and it flourishes; no one would believe she started out by answering his phone.

Her hair is just starting to turn gray, although she colors it to a little darker blonde than it used to be. She wears a little more make-up than she used to and uses all kinds of moisturizers to keep wrinkles at bay. And her stomach isn’t as flat as it was before Jake and Allie. But she still looks cute swimming in his extra large sweatshirts and although his libido has seen better days, she can still turn him on just by chewing on her thumbnail. 

His new assistant is young and pretty and flirts with him incessantly, and he can suddenly see how politicians get into sex scandals. Not that he’s tempted to cheat on his wife; the thought sickens him actually. But he looks around at his colleagues, whose wives are just for show now, and he can see how they would like the attention. When the flirting becomes uncomfortable, he transfers her and hires a male assistant.

Jake’s world consists of baseball and video games. He’s easy going and has finally given up on the idea of marrying Donna. Allie is… Allie. She’s stubborn and opinionated and wants to be more independent than her seven years allow. She and Donna sometimes seem like oil and water and Donna worries that she’s failing. He assures her that she isn’t, but it’s the most important job she’ll ever have and she can’t see how much alike the two of them actually are. When it gets particularly bad he becomes the heavy, sitting his princess down and telling her in no uncertain terms that she will obey and respect her mother. If Donna can be the lioness, he can be the lion.

The fighting isn’t as bad as it was last year when they actually spent some time with a counselor. But the little things he used to find enduring just piss him off now. The way she talks to him like he’s one of the kids, her refusal to admit fault, her nonstop talking about redecorating the house. The day he snaps at her in front of Jake, telling her to ‘just redecorate the fucking thing,’ is one of the few days of their marriage he wishes he could erase.

Still, for the most part things are good. Excellent even. They take the kids to New York over their spring break and Donna and Allie spend the day at the American Girl store while he and Jake watch the Mets beat the Reds in their season opener. And when school gets out for the summer, they leave them with Donna’s parents and go to Europe for two weeks, including a few days in Poland. He’s always wanted to tour Birkenau; or at least he’s always thought he should. He cries; sobs in a way he hasn’t since the kids were born, and she stands there next to him and holds his hand the whole time. 

Year Twenty Seven

He goes through life assuming he knows all there is to know about her. Then one day she comes home from shopping with everything she needs to grow a flower garden and he remembers something he once knew well. Donnatella Lyman is a complicated creature. Retired life isn’t sitting easy with her, especially with Jake off at Harvard and Allie starting at Berkley. 

Their sex life is basically no more. He thinks he should be more upset about it, but he’s seventy-three years old and it’s just no longer an important part of their intimacy. In fact, there’s nothing physical in their intimacy anymore. They don’t sit on the couch together while they watch television; they have their own chairs. They don’t hold each other while falling asleep; they kiss each other goodnight and roll over to their own sides of the bed. And that’s pretty much the only time they do kiss. There are no more make-out sessions, no passing each other in the hallway and just leaning in for a kiss, no more ‘I love you’ out of the blue for no reason.

Now they putter around the house and get in each other’s way. They eat breakfast in silence, sharing the newspaper in a routine set years and years earlier. She spends time in the garden and he spends time reading. He thinks if anyone saw them like this, they’d think the two of them were strangers.

But there are things others wouldn’t notice. Things they’ve learned about each other and for each other over the last twenty-seven years. At one o’clock every afternoon he makes turkey sandwiches and apple slices and takes them outside and they eat lunch while she tells him about whatever flowers she’s planting or pulling. He doesn’t know or care anything about flowers, but it makes her happy and her voice makes him happy. And when she makes dinner in the evenings, he sits at the kitchen table and tells her about whatever book he’s reading, sometimes even reading something aloud to her that he thinks she’d find interesting.

He can’t remember the last time they fought, but figures it probably had something to do with the kids. But for the most part they think alike now. And the little things that used to bug them aren’t worth the trouble anymore. He manages to put down the toilet seat about half the time and assumes she’s figured that’s about as good as it’s going to get. And she still doesn’t take out the trash, but she at least ties the bag and sets it next to the door for him. What more could he ask for?

‘Cause for the most part things are good. Excellent even. They take a trip to California to visit Allie and a trip to Boston to visit Jake. Both kids make it home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and once they go back to school, Josh and Donna spend the rest of January and all of February in Florida where he can’t even believe they bought a winter home. It might not sound romantic or loving to anyone else, but he knows the truth. He doesn’t need to be touching her or holding her; he just needs to be with her. 

 

Year Thirty Nine

The doctors tell him he doesn’t have much time. It’s not all that hard to hear; he’s led a full life. But he doesn’t want to think about her staying here without him. There’ve been very few times over the years their age difference has mattered, but it matters now and he hates himself just a little bit for signing her up for this all those years ago. 

She clings to him now. They’d gone years with little physical contact, but she touches him every chance she gets again and he finds that he missed it more than he knew. She sleeps with her head in the crook of his neck and her hand on his chest over his heart. She curls up with him on the couch in the afternoons and listens to him read to her until he’s tired and has to take a nap, and then she puts a pillow in her lap and he sleeps there while she runs the back of her fingers over his cheek. Her garden is overgrown and full of weeds.

She tells him she loves him all the time and he does the same. They each need the other to know without a doubt. There isn’t time for pride or presumption; there will soon come a day it can’t be said again. 

He doesn’t know how to do this. How to close his eyes and not open them again to see her. He finds himself replaying each missed dinner, each argument, those five horrible months when the kids were young and they actually considered a separation. How stupid he was to ever think he could live without her. How thankful he is that his heart just couldn’t quite give up on them.

He thinks about other times too. Of missed kisses and misdirection, and he’d give anything to go back and not have wasted those first nine years they knew each other. 

But the hardest thing is that she cries. She waits till he’s asleep, but he can hear her anyway; telling him how happy he’s made her and that he’s the love of her life and that she’s sorry for every horrible thing she’s ever said to him. He can’t remember anything horrible about her. 

But even now, for the most part things are good. Jake brings his wife and daughter over at least once a week for dinner. It’s really too much on his body, but he makes sure he’s well rested so his five year-old grand daughter doesn’t have to remember him lying sickly in bed. And Allie lives in California, but she flies in for a long weekend every month. She looks so much like her mother that he wonders sometimes if he’s hallucinating the past. But then Donna walks into the room and he remembers that she’s even more beautiful now.

He gets Jake alone one evening and talks to him, tells him what he expects from him, how he expects him to take care of her. Tells him it’s easier to go knowing he can count on him. It’s not really true; he can count on Jake, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Year Forty One

Her garden is blooming again for the first time and she cuts roses and tulips and daisies out of it each week and takes them to the cemetery. She usually stays for a half hour or so and reads aloud or talks about the garden or the kids or the grandkids. She used to come more often, needing to feel close to him, but she’s learned over the last year and a half that she feels the closest to him in their home or holding their newest grandson.

She tries not to think of the day he died; she prefers to remember him alive and well and yelling at someone in congress or spoiling the kids. But occasionally it slips into her memory and the tears fall. It had to have taken every last bit of strength he had to open his eyes and tell her he loved her one more time. And when he’d closed them again, she’d just known.

But usually she remembers him and smiles. He always made a huge mess of the den, he used to fall asleep at night with the television on, he never got the dishes clean when he washed them by hand, he took a surfing lesson in Hawaii once and claimed to have gotten knocked off the surfboard by a shark. That was the day he first told her he loved her.

But life goes on and for the most part, things are good. Jake comes by every single day; his wife is two months pregnant with their third child and their son is named after Josh. Allie’s moving back to town to get her masters at Georgetown, the democrats just won back the White House, and her garden’s doing well. There’s a void that can’t be filled, but she still feels his love. It’s in Jake’s dimples and Allie’s determination; their granddaughter’s eyes and their grandson’s energy. And for now, that’s enough.


End file.
